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My Takeaway from Yahoo OMS 2014

I’m getting old and forgetful so before I completely forget why I disappeared from my office for a whole day. Here’s a summary of my key takeaway from the Yahoo OMS 2014, Hong Kong.

Statics:
2014, Hong Kong people spend avg. 148 mins daily accessing to the internet through their mobile devices, which is a 12% increase compared to last year.

Surprising? Nope. Any new engaging ad format on Mobile? Not that I’ms aware of. Tough cookie to crack.

Tumblr:
Top 3 Tumblr countries in the world:
1. US
2. Brazil
3. Japan

56% of the users are aged 13-34 (opps, I barely make the cut, ;-p) with quite even gender distribution, 51% female and 49% male.

I’m so glad that one of the countries I look after is on the top 3. My colleague and I were discussing why Japan is so up high on Tumblr use?

My take?
1. Tumblr is similar to Twitter that you don’t have to know your followers or the people you follow. You can remain completely anonymous, which fits their overall culture of being private and shy.
2. Tumblr is a very visual appealing platform with amazing animated gifs. With the Menga culture so deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, Japanese audience is no doubt easily fascinated by the visual/animated appeals.

Your take?

Intent of Use – Facebook Vs Twitter Vs Tumblr

Finally came Entertainment –

“Put Brands into Popular Culture and Popular Culture into Brands”

This is a key way to make your brand up to date and appeal to the current social media savvy, content seeking generation. You have to be either very funny, very touching or completely incredible to be a social media/viral babe.

Many marketers, especially digital marketers, would fall into the trap that we have to create stories for digital. Viral campaign was such a buzz words a couple years ago. However, not all videos were made with the goals of getting viral would actually make it. Truth is, many just fail. Why? You have to have a GREAT story to begin with and the devil lives in the execution. It’s not that random low quality, flash of genius video don’t get viral, but these videos were usually not made to be viral.

I was responsible for a couple of semi-failure, myself. It’s hard to have a “brand-right” viral video unless your brand is embracing the risk. “Safe” can get you nowhere.

Speaking of successful campaign, here’s the tips:

“Think like a Marketer, Act like a Producer.”

Of course. It’s much easier said that done. Let’s see how it’s done well.

The QVC’s stunt with Miss Pissy & the Great late Joan Rivers is simply genius

Act 1:
At one of the red carpet after-party, Ms. Joan Rivers, stormed out from the party with whipped cream on her face. With such a controversy personality, this potential “assault” attracted media attention. All the entertainment news was picking this up.

Later, a “secret” clip was revealed in the internet. The “attacker” was actually Miss Piggy from the Muppet. At that moment, the public knew it’s not some common cat fights between celebrities. It’s indeed a stunt, but it’s interesting enough to keep you follow.

Act 2:
A video documenting of Ms. Rivers & Piggy’ decade-long hostility against each other came up with interviews of other celebrities, with their speculation on the fight. Of course, the celebrities were carefully chosen. My favourite has to be, the girl from “Precious”, she went like “Seeing the cake thing, just broke my heart”. Her face was priceless. – This is pure entertainment.

Act 3:
Finally, the devil was revealed – Ms. Rivers and Piggy is going to battle on who’s better by going on QVC, a traditional TV shopping channel and see who can sell more in a day. Yes, the devil is QVC. Even though at that point, you knew the stunt is for QVC, you still want to know who won. The winner, of course, is QVC, who finally can tab into the younger generation and had the most social day.

What else did I learn? Yes, something for fellow marketers. Listen to your audience before coming up with the idea for a campaign. It’s not something new but as a marker, sometimes, you simply get ahead of yourself and forget the basic.